EFTERKLANG
RAINCOATS SINGLERUM025
digital

release date:
August 23rd 2010

This is Efterklang’s third single from their accomplished third full-length album Magic Chairs. Raincoats will be released digitally August 23rd 2010 on the bands own Rumraket label in Scandinavia and on legendary British label 4AD in rest of the world.

Copenhagen-based Efterklang explore a new realm with Magic Chairs, their first full-length record for 4AD and their third in the band’s decade-long existence. Well regarded for their unique fusion of left-of-centre electronic beats and grand orchestral gestures, the band eschewed the familiar territory of previous albums Tripper and Parades for something more streamlined, deconstructed and melodious. Calling on the mixing talents of Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Interpol, Mogwai, Grizzly Bear) Efterklang have delivered what is possibly their most focused album to date.

By way of demonstration, new single Raincoats builds on a simple hand-clapped rhythm and a jagged guitar refrain. Without ostentation, the song is like a pre-historic tribal call-to-arms, with harmonized vocals chanting, “I begin to love the way you are / All the reasons why I might / I Begin to fall apart.”

Raincoats will be backed with a reworking of Magic Chairs track Harmonics. On the latter track, Efterklang live member and solo artist Peter Broderick (Bella Union) joins forces with pianist Nils Frahm (Erased Tapes) to dissect the song’s core components and carefully reassembling them with the bare minimum of fuss, lending his own vocals to the recording.

With aesthetics continuing to be a hugely important component for Efterklang, the band have once again collaborated with celebrated design duo Hvass&Hannibal to produce the artwork for Raincoats. The hand-dyed ribbons are a recurring motif echoed on the Magic Chairs sleeve.

Earlier this year Efterklang performed live for the 4AD Sessions, filming four songs in the middle of an empty VEGA in Copenhagen. The footage sees the quartet in their expanded seven-piece live mode with Peter Broderick, his sister Heather and Frederik Teige.